Indiana

Happy New Years to everyone! My New Year’s resolution is to travel more – I think this is one we’ll keep!

What a year of blessings 2013 has been. It hasn’t all been blessings but I am choosing to write off the bad things. I’ve forgiven those who have hurt me, prayed for them and now it’s time to put them in the past. The blessings below are just some of what God has provided for us this year but I do want to share these.

-Living in Northern Minnesota for the summer with its magnificent beauty, perfect weather and a new culture for us to learn about. Living with the loons, chipmunks, lots of wild blueberries and raspberries all near the beautiful lake that is Lake Kabetogama.

-Making friends with Russ and Annie Johnson in Minnesota. We worked together, shared fun times and we plan to visit them in Florida very soon!

-Making friends with Nichole and Ron Aschliman’s family in Indiana. They blessed us so much by inviting us to their home and farm for dinner and fellowship.

-Seeing so many of God’s creations around the USA this year.

–Being able to take a nap on occasion when others in my pre-RV life were at work.

-Being able for the first time in my life to read and read and read whenever I wanted to

-Being able to come back to Louisiana for Thanksgiving and Christmas and re-connect with those who matter most to us.

-Seeing my son in a wonderful relationship with his girlfriend Kimberly. We are looking forward to seeing what their future holds knowing they are both dedicated to following God’s will in their lives.

-Meeting and getting to know Kimberly’s twin sons, Braxton and Bentley and cuddle and kiss on them.

-Reconnecting with our precious granddaughter Madisyn. Spending time getting to enjoy the growing young lady she is puts a smile in both our hearts.

-Being able to attend different churches throughout the United States and learn about their beliefs, experiencing different worship styles and fellowshiping with other Christians from those different churches.

-Establishing a new hometown in Madison, SD which oddly enough is similar to our real hometown of Hammond, LA

-Receiving personally autographed pictures of Drew Brees!

-Being able to help at Kabetogama Methodist Church’s Vacation Bible School

-Finding our wonderful real estate agent Jamie and her getting a contract to sell our rental house before it ever went on the market – full price and a cash sale too!

-Our son Chip taking care of emptying the rental house, doing repairs inside and outside, going to the Act of Sale for us and much more!

-Jamie also finding a renter for our own sticks and bricks house and finding them to be wonderful renters since then.

-Living in an area for several weeks where the Amish live and getting to see them up close, even doing laundry with them. Learning about their lives and developing a respect for them.

-Worshiping God again in our home church. Hearing our choir sing for Christmas was a highlight of our return to Louisiana.

Each of the places below were blessings as we discovered parts of our beautiful country.

Vince Schute Bear Sanctuary in Minnesota where we watched bears in their natural habit quite up close

Learning about cheesecake making at Eli’s Cheesecake Company and winning our own whole cheesecake in Chicago

Saw a Minnesota Twins game in Minneapolis

Visiting Soldier Field in Chicago

Visiting Wrigley Field in Chicago

Visiting a bank that Jesse James robbed decades ago in Indiana

Attending our first ever Callithumpian parade in Decatur, Indiana and a 4th of July parade in International Falls, MN

Seeing hundreds of miles of corn fields along all of the highways and in any available planting space throughout 3 states

Floating down an underground river in Lost River Cave in Kentucky

Touring both the Winnebago RV and Fleetwood RV manufacturing plants learning more about how these huge moving homes are put together.

Touring the South Bend Chocolate company in Indiana and sampling some of their goodies

Walking the 500 stairs in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and surviving!

Experiencing a great deal of awe at the Field of Dreams in Iowa

Met Dr. Schnell who treated Roy’s hurting knee in Minnesota

Getting to experience the glorious changing of leaf colors while the new cold weather traveled south with us!

Toured Lake Superior from the water on the Vista Cruise Fleet in Duluth, Minnesota

Toured Duluth, Minnesota by land on the North Scenic Railroad

Toured the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth, Minnesota

Took an amazing pontoon boat adventure in the freezing cold in Voyageurs National Park to the Kettle Falls Hotel and Restaurant and the Ellsworth Rock Garden

Ate at the amazing Lambert’s Restaurant in Branson

Saw the production of Joseph (from the Bible) at Sights and Sounds Theatre in Branson

I am exhausted just listing all that and yet we did that all since May of 2013. This change of lifestyle has been a huge leap of faith for both of us but looking back on all we’ve seen, done and experienced this year makes me certain it’s the right thing for us to be doing. We’ve learned and done so much and experienced so many adventures that I love writing my blog about and hope to continue to do so!

We’ve stayed in town for the holidays long enough to be here during Mardi Gras king cake season and are enjoying one right now. We hope to leave Louisiana next week sometime and are starting to make plans for seeing and doing more adventurous things as we continue our travels in 2014.

When we chose where we sat for the parade on Monday night we didn’t know that God sat us in the right place, right next to the Aschliman family. Roy and Nichole (the mom of the Aschliman family) talked a good bit during the parade and we enjoyed seeing their children have a great time at the parade. Roy gave Nichole our card with our blog address on it since I would be writing about the parade and they might like to see it. When we got back to Dora (our RV) after the parade I received a text message from Nichole with a dinner invitation from she and her husband Ron for Tuesday evening. Wow, we were surprised and quite excited. A nice home cooked meal in a REAL HOUSE!!! How cool is that???

Nichole is a beautiful mom whose loving influence has created a comfortable and welcoming home. Ron is a hard working dad who brings a strong Christian leadership to his family. Even though they are Indianapolis Colts season ticket holders we tried not to hold that against them! If we happen to be here this Sunday they have invited us to attend their church with them. They know we hope not to be here, but if we are we will definitely do that.

Ron, Nichole, Rosalyn and Roy

They have a huge 1000 acre farm where they raise corn, soybeans and 5,000 pigs! The equipment is ginormous John Deere equipment and they have lots of it. We climbed up on their combine and boy was it a different world up there. Really cool too!

The soybeans that they grow. Little Holly shared these with me. We ate some of them raw and they taste a little like unsalted sunflower seeds.The monster combine with Trevor, Melanie, Nichole and RopyRoy and I with the children, Melanie, Holly and TrevorMelanie and HollyTrevor went up to join his younger sisters Melanie and Holly

We went in one of the pig houses and there were pigs as far as you could see. When we went in the pigs started squealing and running all around. It was actually kind of funny but I felt bad for scaring the pigs!

One of the pig houses with the pigs scrambling around and squealing! This place was huge. They have a total of 5,000 pigs!Outside the pig house is the machine that sends food into the pigs so their feeding is automated.

Their home is a three generation home where Ron’s parents and grandparents lived. Ron and Nichole have made a lot of changes including putting in a beautiful pond and small beach. The pond has a cement pier that the kids can either climb into the pond or slide into it or fish from it. The water is almost pool like, clear and blue! We could easily see the fish swimming in the pond.

The sandy beach and pond in their back yardSome of the farm seen from the pier over the pondRoy watching Melanie and Holly fishing in the pondThe pond with some of their farm fields in the background

The children Trevor (5th grade), Melanie (3rd grade) and Holly (Kindergarten) are adorable and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with and playing with them. Holly asked me during dinner how old I am and I asked her how old she thinks I am. She said 31 so guess who my new best little friend is!!!! We brought the kids a little craft making present and when Melanie opened it she said “You guys need to come visit more often!” They are all three adorable, active, well behaved children who have so much room to play and explore. They climbed on everything we saw no matter how high. Trevor rode his four wheeler all around having a great time. My heart stopped a bit when he rode real fast on the hill around the pond. Made me remember the days when our oldest son and Chip rode their go-karts and caused my mama to have little heart attacks when she saw them!

Trevor after a fast ride on his four wheeler. Their home is in the background.Two of the little monkey kids climbed up on top of their dad’s office in the barn!Here’s Holly munching down on some soy beans!Melanie’s riding the toy John Deere tractor!Melanie showing us her tree swinging skills!

Melanie and Holly brought us down into their basement where they treated us to a couple of puppet shows. We really enjoyed that and kind of felt like grandparents again being entertained by our grandchildren. Neither Roy nor I have been in a basement before so this was a real treat! It’s a perfect place for the kids to run around and be creative.

Downstairs in the basement Melanie put on a puppet show for us with assistance from her sister Holly! We love it!More of the puppet show in the basement!

The dinner Nichole and Ron cooked for us was delicious – grilled home grown pork chops, green beans, potato casserole and biscuits with pumpkin pie for dessert! Northerners do know how to cook food with flavor – delicious flavor!

Looking out the door of the barn at some of the farm buildngsThis goes on the combine when they are harvesting soybeansThis is where the corn and peas live after they are harvested. The vehicle next to it rides along next to the combine during harvest. The combine dumps the picked product into this machine so the combine doesn’t have to stop while harvesting to unload.Piggy houses!

Nichole shared with me some information about Amish that I did not know which explains some of the things I’ve seen. I’ve also read several books about Amish living and between the two I have a new respect and appreciation for the depth of dedication the Amish have to their faith. I plan to share some of what I’ve learned with ya’ll in a future posting.

God always knows what he’s doing and we can see His hand at work in bringing us together with this wonderful Christian couple and their family. I thank God for His love for us and always knowing what we need. I thank Ron and Nichole and their wonderful children for allowing us into their home to share their dinner and Christian fellowship with us. I truly hope we will be able to stay in touch with them as we continue our travels.

We’ve seen The Bridge Community Church while driving around Decatur, Indiana and decided to attend their Worship Service on Sunday morning. It was definitely a blessing for both Roy and I. Dave Fox is the pastor at their North Campus and his sermon was on Jesus, Son of God. Roy and I left wishing we were going to be staying around longer so we could come back to this church. It has been very eye opening to attend various churches as we travel. God can be worshiped in many different ways. As long as the heart of worship is to honor God that’s what matters.

We listened to the Saints on-line on WWL radio. Loved hearing Jim Henderson and Bobby Hebert and Hokie Gajan calling the game, especially since THEY WON!!!

We came back to the church Sunday evening for their Fall Harvest Party. The church is huge so they were able to hold the entire party inside the building. It is a wonderful outreach to the community and the parking lot was packed when we got there. Long tables of delicious foods were served, lots of games and photo op locations. We loved seeing the little children in their precious costumes and we enjoyed the food we ate!

Monday night the town of Decatur held its Callithumpian Parade which we’ve learned just means Noisy Parade. It’s really a Halloween parade with lots of organizations having tents and booths set up selling food for fundraisers. When we arrived the first things we noticed was that all along the parade route through downtown Decatur there were folding chairs along every inch of the parade route on the sidewalks. They were not set up chairs but chairs in their bags just marking their space. We walked around and checked everything out, then went back to the truck and got our chairs and marked our spot! We bought a huge order of nachos with meat and cheese from one of the tents and enjoyed them while waiting for the parade.

A really nice mom, dad and three children set their chairs down next to us. During the parade we got to visit with them and enjoy watching their children and the other children around us get so excited every time someone threw some candy to them. No beads and doubloons, but a lot of candy and even some llamas, yes llamas and they were in costume!! The parade was over an hour long and had several marching bands, some truck floats and lots of noisy emergency response vehicles making the name Callithumpian quite appropriate!

Nichole is the mom of the family we sat by and before we left Roy gave her one of our cards so they could check out our blog. She was nice enough to send us information about some places to eat or visit around the area since we are having an extended stay here. We were very happy and surprised to get a text message from her later in the evening inviting us to dinner at their home tonight. They live on a farm and are going to show us around the farm before dinner. We are both so excited to get to see this part of living in this area up close. We look forward to going tonight and will certainly be sharing our experience in tomorrow’s blog!

It is amazing how God is opening up this town to us as we await the RV part to come in and be installed. We were feeling very lost and anxious last week from being closed in with the terrible weather and no place to go. He has turned it all around into a time we’re really enjoying and being blessed by!

Just a quick posting to update on our situation here in Decatur, Indiana. On Friday Fleetwood found a company in Michigan who can make the part we need in 3-4 days and then they will ship it to Fleetwood who will install it here. Since today is Saturday that means we’ll probably be here until late next week.

Roy stretched Dora’s carpet today and I took lots of laundry to the laundromat. The young Amish man wasn’t there this time but two Amish ladies with black caps came in to get laundry out of the dryer while I was there. I walked through Dollar General while waiting for my laundry and saw an Amish man and his son. When they left they got into a car and drove away. I’m starting to think the Amish here must be very liberal in their behavior compared to what I thought Amish were like. We plan to go to Berne, Indiana on Monday to check out more of Amish life.

I want to say a huge thank you to my sister’s husband George. He helped us out recently by changing out the kitchen faucet at our rental house on Wardline Road. He really came through for us since we aren’t there for Roy to handle it. I’m so thankful for family like him and Chip who have stepped up to help us since we are still so far away! Thanks George!

Hallelujah! We most probably will get to leave our spot in the Fleetwood parking lot tomorrow after 10 days here.

This has been the least liked part of our RV life so far sitting in a gravel parking lot in the freezing cold with no place to go. I’m very thankful it is coming to an end. After days of waiting, the part being made in Fort Wayne, Indiana was finally ready. Roy and I drove there ourselves to get the part. Since we didn’t get back till almost closing time at Fleetwood we gave them the part and are quite hopeful we’ll get “the call” at 6 am that they are coming to get Dora to put that part in. The weather the last few days has been cold, windy and rainy making it miserable to go outside for anything. It may snow tonight but not too much which will be nice if it doesn’t prevent us from leaving.

We went shopping in Fort Wane after church on Sunday and bought 2 new pots for our induction cook top since all our old pots don’t work on it. We have a 10” skillet, 6 quart pot and 2 quart pot and that should be all we need for everything I’ll cook. The 6 quart pot is getting its first use tonight for some homemade chili. We went to Wal-mart earlier today and bought the fixings for chili, vegetable beef soup and gumbo. This new pot will get broken in really well these next few days. Since our freezer won’t hold several meals of any of those things I’m learning to reduce the amount I cook so we eat one meal and freeze one meal.

Just finished fixin’ the chili and eating a bowl of it. It is perfect for a really cold spell like we’re having here. Our son Chip will probably be drooling when he sees the picture I just sent him of our Chili! It’s what I always cooked to welcome Winter to Louisiana. We’re definitely in the midst of winter here so it’s time. Notice the Styrofoam bowl, plate and plastic spoon! All part of RV life at it’s best!

I really love induction cooking and would highly recommend it for RV life or sticks and bricks house life. Induction pots are hard to find but we finally found ours at Target. They are expensive but they cook so well it’s very worth it. Remember when we were starting out and Roy was so worried he’d never eat good again? Well he doesn’t worry about that any longer!

We have reservations for 7 days in Park City, Kentucky when we leave here. There are a lot of things to see around there and we can’t wait to get there! We may be in Louisiana in less than 3 weeks and are looking forward to winter in the south!

The World Series first game is tonight. My Atlanta Braves are not in it but we love baseball and will be watching tonight cheering on the NL representative St. Louis Cardinals.

Last Monday we arrived at the Fleetwood Manufacturing Plant and were given the RV site #34 to park in. On Tuesday we took the fantabulous tour of the plant. On Wednesday they called us in for our turn to be evaluated. We did not have a scheduled appointment so we were considered a drop-in which meant our issues would be addressed after the RVs with appointments were serviced. Once they determined what needed to be done, they had to get approval from our extended warranty people and on Friday morning we received a call around 6 am that they were going to come get Dora and us to have the approved work done. They successfully replaced the part for the air suspension however when they replaced the O-rings on the dash a/c it was still leaking so they replaced it again and it was still leaking. They determined it is a hose that needs to be replaced and of course they don’t have one. A company in Fort Wayne, Indiana can make one but they don’t have the end caps. They are pretty sure they can get those in on Monday. They also need to replace a a/c dryer which had to be ordered and should be in Monday also. Our extended warranty is paying for most of this, for which we are very happy!

Looking out of Dora’s door inside the maintenance garage with about 25 other RVsThere is a pink RV next to usDora being servicedThe big lot we are all parked in.It’s so cold outside our neighbor kept his milk and orange juice on the outside step!

There really isn’t too much to do around here which makes this long wait even harder. We’ve toured the local K-Mart, Salvation Army and Wal-Mart just to have something to do since we couldn’t go too far away in case Dora was called in. Yesterday we had a big outing to the Village Green Cleaners. We haven’t been hooked up to water in over a week so the laundry really piled up. For those who do not have an RV, we have a fresh water tank for use in washing dishes, flushing the potty and taking showers. None left over for doing the laundry. Roy and I drove over to the cleaners with our huge bag of laundry and a bag full of quarters. I do not remember ever using a Laundromat so I needed some help and instruction. The only person there was a young Amish man doing laundry. He was very nice and polite and showed me how much money to put in and how to operate the dryers. He had about 8 washers running and seemed to be doing his whole family’s laundry. I didn’t think that Amish used motorized equipment like washers and dryers and certainly didn’t think that the young men did laundry. I wanted so badly to talk to him and ask him things but I was surprised how intimidated I was of him. He washed, dried and folded everything himself. I saw lots and lots of black clothes, white ladies caps, a blue bedspread and a green one and a few royal blue colored clothes. He spoke good English when he spoke to me but when his family came to pick him and the laundry up they spoke to each other in part English and part Dutch or whatever they speak. I had my Kindle with me and was reading from Hebrews while he read from his Bible which oddly enough was a Gideon Bible. These are the kinds of experiences that make RV life special.

The weather has been wet, windy and cold this week which made us not want to get out too much. Saturday afternoon the sun came out and it wasn’t raining but was still windy. We decided we needed to get out and enjoy the day so we went to see some of downtown Decatur. What a nice surprise it was to find a really neat town. There are several sculptures at various spots downtown and due to the Fall season there are many big planter pots decorated by a company, group or organization about 3-4 per block. I found out that the city is decorated getting ready for the Callithumpian parade later this month. The folks here vote on their favorite decorated pot and the top three win a prize during the Callithumpian festival. I have no idea what Callithumpian means but they have a sign hung over the main street announcing it!

I tried to take pictures of all the holiday decorated pots plus the metal sculptures that are permanently there. It’s fun to get out of the car and stroll down the streets of a totally unknown city. I felt really safe and everyone I saw (which wasn’t many) was friendly.

We’ve found a Baptist church nearby for us to go to tomorrow. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully we will be able to leave here Monday or Tuesday to go south to Kentucky. Ya’ll have a great weekend! Our Southeastern Lions and LSU Tigers play this evening (not against each other so I’ll close with Geaux Lions and Tigers!

We went to the two and one-half hour Fleetwood Motorhome Factory Tour here in Decatur, Indiana this morning. The tour is conducted Monday – Friday at 9 am and it is freeeeee!!! There are five Fleetwood factories in Decatur. The factory we toured, shown below, is on 95 acres, 1.2 million square feet with a paint shop that’s almost 1,000 feet long. On average, this factory produces 18 units per day. They do not build any RVs that are not pre-sold.

This tour was far superior to the Winnebago tour we took last week. The tour guide, Tom, had been with Fleetwood for over 20 years and knew just everything. We all wore safety glasses and headphones so we could hear Tom no matter what the sound level was in the factory. He took us down on the factory floor for the whole tour. We got to touch and see up close every aspect of the build. We learned that it generally takes 4 weeks for a class A RV like ours to go from start to finish. They are not making any more the Excursion at the length ours is. They’ve reduced it to around 33 feet.

Fleetwood also makes American Coach RVs which is a higher level and cost between $400,000 to $650,000 for the 2014 models. A little bit out of our price range but it was fascinating to see those up close. The tour was an all walking tour and when we got back to Dora I was so tired I took a long, long nap. Again we were not allowed to take pictures so I found some on the internet that others sneeked of this tour so you see some of what we saw.

Not only did we take this fantastic, informative tour today but the act of sale on our Brenda Drive rental house was held today!!!!!!!!! Very happy to have this completed and we thank everyone who helped make this happen. We are blessed with friends and family who pitched in to help get the house cleaned up and ready to put on the market. Big, big thanks to our phenomenal real estate agent Jamie Johnson for making this happen so fast and go so smoothly.

We’re hoping for 6 am wake up call telling us to bring Dora in for servicing. Ya’ll come back now ya’ hear!

We left Grand View Bend Resort this morning and guess who drove Dora from our parking space to the end of the road where the resort ends – me!!!!!!!!!!!! It was my first time in the drivers seat and while I didn’t have to do anything fancy it was my first step towards learning how to drive this big girl!

We traveled south to Decatur, Indiana where the Fleetwood Factory and service facility is located. We’re signed in and parked in spot #34 waiting for our number to be called. We need to have the service department check out a few things including having our a/c checked. Not the living area a/c but the part that cools us while we’re driving in the front. We’re hoping our extended warranty covers this! We’re going to the 9 am tour of the plant in the morning and then on to Berne Indiana to see a Swiss cheese plant, a woodworking plant and more Amish folks. Don’t know how long we’ll be here yet so we may be able to see even more.

We’ve been on the road for two weeks and traveled over 800 miles since leaving Lake Kabetogama. We have over 900 miles still to travel until we reach Hammond, Louisiana which is our home where we started from. We’ve both been a little homesick, especially missing our granddaughter Madisyn who just moved back to Louisiana with her mama. We’re enjoying seeing this part of our country but are really looking forward to seeing familiar things again soon!

The act of sale for our Brenda Drive rental house is scheduled for tomorrow. It will be nice to have that behind us and have those loans cancelled. We’ll get to meet the folks who are renting our house on Wardline Road when we get back to Louisiana. There is still a lot of country to see before we get there and I hope ya’ll stay along for the ride.

We are settled in a nice RV park called Grand Bend View in Howe, Indiana. Howe is in the northern part of the state above Indianapolis. We plan to be here until Sunday which will be the longest we’ve stayed anywhere since leaving Kabetogama. Our travel plan was intended to get us out of the far north as soon as possible to void any possible snow problems. We are parked next to a wooden fence that divides the RV Park from a multi-acre open field. Just beautiful. Can’t wait to drink our morning coffee under the tree and take in all the beauty!

Our drive here included a stop at the South Bend Chocolate Company for their Inside Scoop tour. I’ll write about that tomorrow since today I want to share the rest of the pictures we took in and around Chicago. I like to include pictures of house in cities we go through and there were so many different types of houses in Chicago so I have many house pictures included below

Welcome to Illinois!Chicago signSide view of Soldier fieldI-55 North and South signs! Felt like we were back in Hammond for a second!Chicago street in front of Soldier FieldChicago fire station and truckFamous bar across street from Wrigley FieldSome of the goodies at Eli’s Cheesecake factoryLake MichiganLakeshore Drive in ChicagoSandy beach next to Lakeshore Drive in ChcagoThis is a two part bus with an accordion like center that allows the bus to turn corners easier. Really weird!Being technology minded like Roy is, when we pulled up behind this car he said “oh look Operating System car!”

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